People scare me

[someonewholovesthemselves]

People scare me. Whenever someone is kind to me, my mind immediately goes they want something from me, they can exploit me, abuse me and they are definitely going to hit me if I get angry at them. Also I run away from everyone. I push people away. I used to stay in abusive relationships previously, now I can identify abusive patterns and I leave. It is hard for me to trust anyone.

[NarcKiddo]

This resonates and I have discussed it a lot with my T.

I found that part of the problem was I did not even trust myself. Gradually learning that I can protect myself and stand up to people if necessary means that I feel braver about trusting people now because I know that if they breach my trust I am not going to be stuck with them and have to put up with that behaviour.

My T also pointed out that when we have trust issues we can often hold others up to an impossible standard. I know I have a tendency to do that.Noticing abusive patterns and spotting red flags is a very important protective mechanism for us, of course. But it's helpful to remember that nobody is perfect, and that "good enough" really is "good enough". In a healthy relationship there will be times when someone makes a mistake. The parties then need to work through that, apologise and make amends as appropriate, and move on. Ideally with their relationship strengthened because they both realise it is important enough to want to work through problems. Holding people to an impossible standard of perfection means we tend to take any mistake on their part as "evidence" that they are absolutely not to be trusted and then we run away.